[Reader-list] Invitation for NMML Lecture on Wednesday , 8 August 2012

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

The Nehru Memorial Museum  and Library
  
 
 
  
  
cordially  invites you to The Seminar
  
 
 
  
  
at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 8 August 2012
  
 
 
  
  
in the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building
  
 
 
  
  
on
  
 
 
  
  
'Jinnealogy: Everyday Life  and Islamic Theology in Post-Partition Delhi'
  
 
 
  
  
by
  
 
 
  
  
Mr. Anand  Vivek Taneja, Doctoral candidate,  Department of Anthropology, Columbia    University, New York
  
 
 
  
  
Abstract:
  
 
 
  
  
In this paper, I will look at the expanding  presence of jinn (djinn/genies) in the landscape of post-Partition Delhi, and the  respectability given to the jinn anew by reformist Muslim theologians writing  popular tracts in the decade after Partition in 1947. I argue that this new  acceptability of the jinn is linked to the failure of human memory and its  institutions when faced with the destructive and all-pervasive violence of  Partition. Memory needs work. It needs documents and stories, spaces of  ritual, and sites of mourning. The Partition of the subcontinent was a  death-blow for prior modes of memory-work, particularly for the Muslims of  Delhi. For the Partition didn't end for them with the violent catcalysms and  mass displacements of 1947, but still continues. Muslim houses were  expropriated by the state, and Muslim tombs, mosques and graveyards, many of  them centuries old, were leveled to make way for the planned modernist city  of the 1960s. It is with this destruction of the landscape of memory that  everyday Muslim life in Delhi  now operates. What kind of effect does this texture of everyday life have on  Muslim theology? Here, i argue, lies the renewed interest in the jinns and  their growing presence in Delhi's  landscapes. The jinn are said to live much longer than humans and hence their  memory equals several generations of human history, and there are several  anecdotes in the literature of the transmission of knowledge by jinn linking  human characters centuries apart in time. Transmission through the jinn,  jinnealogy as it were, is both tactic and tragedy; a way of making  authoritative claims without any other evidentiary basis; but also an acknowledgement  of the overwhelming destruction of records and cityscapes and social  relationships within which human memory now has to operate.
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
 
  
  
Speaker:
  
 
 
  
  
Anand Vivek Taneja is a Doctoral candidate in  the Department of Anthropology at Columbia   University. His work is  concerned with Islam in contemporary Delhi,  and with the intersections between history, ecology, everyday life and  sacrality. His previous training is in history and in film-making.He recieved  his BA (Honours) in History from Ramjas  College, Delhi University,  and his MA in Film and Mass Communication from the AJ Kidwai Mass  Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia.   
  
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
  
 
 
  
  
All are welcome.